IMPORT REVIEW: Tales of Hearts is worth the import if you are an avid fan of the series.
If you are for some reason curious of what path I took, I went with the Anime Movie Edition. Why? Well my friends, after playing (or watching) many Tales games, I've been used to the anime cinematics, and in my opinion, the franchise should stay that way. I have watched the openings for both versions, and after watching the CG opening, I felt that it didn't suit a Tales game. After playing through many of the Final Fantasy games, I feel that CG in RPGs should stay with Square-Enix titles. Also........the Anime cover looks better.
It has been nearly 14 years since Namco first introduced the Tales franchise, with Tales of Phantasia on the Super Famicom. Since then, there have been eleven games in the main series. Phantasia in 1995; Destiny in 1997; Eternia in 2000; Destiny 2 in 2002; Symphonia in 2003; Rebirth in 2004; Legendia in 2005; Abyss, also in 2005; Innocence in 2007; Vesperia in 2008; Hearts, also in 2008. These are the eleven games in the main series, and there's more where that came from according to Namco themselves. We have the twelfth game coming out, Tales of Graces, as an example. Over these 14 years of Tales, we haven't just seen these 11 mothership titles, but also, several spin-offs, (i.e. Tales of the Tempest, Radiant Mythology) sequels (i.e. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World) and remakes (i.e. Tales of Destiny on the PlayStation 2). Namco seem to have taking a liking to the DS, as they have now released three Tales games on the system. The trouble is, they're only available in Japan! Why? I do not know. But in this review, you shall find out if the latest DS game is worth the import.
A friendly warning: I am not yet fluent in Japanese while I write this review, so some of the following information may be slightly incorrect in translation. I have also checked a few websites to see if my plot synopsis is correct. Thank you for your understanding.
Because of the great empire ruling over the whole continent, the people are in complete peace. They pass down fairy-tales such as The Sleeping Princess of the Thorny Forest, The Monsters that Eat Dreams, and The Eventual Fading of the Black Moon. Though recently a disease that contaminates the heart called Despil Disease has begun to spread. Then the Zerom, the monster from the fairy-tales that eats dreams is shown to exist, and they are beginning to eat into a person's heart, referred to as Spiria within the world. To be able to fight the Zerom, the humans' Spiria has created mysterious labyrinths in their hearts, known as Spir Mazes. Only with equipment known as Soma can people go into these Spir Mazes. The story unfolds with Shing Meteoryte, in the town of Seeble, training with his grandfather, Zex. He finds female protagonist, Kohak Hearts washed up on the beach with her older brother, Hisui Hearts. Soon after, his grandfather gets killed, and gives the Soma, Asteria, to Shing. So Shing, Kohak and Hisui (who also has a Soma) start their journey of conquering Spir Mazes. Along the way, more allies enhanced with the Soma will accompany you.
I have a little bit to talk about regarding some of the characters. As written above, Shing is the main character, along with Kohak and Hisui, who are supporting characters. You will come across three other allies. They are Beryl, a young girl in cute witch-like clothing; Innes, the "glamour girl" of this installment; and Kunzite, a mechanical guardian knight. While most of the protagonists seem to be decent characters, I have a particular problem with Beryl. Apparently, she's 18 years old, but has the look of a 12-year old from the sprite and artwork. I find this very strange. I have come across such oddities before, (Rena from Star Ocean 2 as an example) but this is starting to get a bit tedious for me.
All the battle systems throughout the Tales franchise have been action-based. Tales of Hearts carries on this action formula, and it still works for me. The creators like to call this the "Linear Motion Battle System. Tales of Hearts continues this trend, and contains the side-scrolling which we saw in Phantasia, Destiny, Eternia, Destiny 2 and Rebirth. There are a few differences, however. Firstly, MP is absent. Instead, you have a minor energy bar which is used up when attacking. It rises back up quickly though. It also breaks combos when at zero, alas. The ability system is a bit different this time around. Like always, your skills can be assigned to a certain button combo (such as Up and B). For every ally, you have a list of Soma upgrades. You can increase stats for your characters with these countless upgrades, and gain new abilities from them. To do so, you require materials. Materials which can be found whilst adventuring, and defeating enemies. After a certain amount of upgrades, the Soma itself is able to increase in quality. Every Soma level up, you have three choices of what version of the weapon you want. The three choices all differ in overall stats, so be careful what you choose, as you are unable to turn back. This system replaces the regular equipment function used in previous games. I'm unsure if what I have just stated is 100% correct, but this is my understanding of it at least.
Even the adventuring in Hearts feels different from previous installments. Towns are more-or-less the same, and I've always enjoyed the charm of them. Going from town to town has a bit of a difference. For the first few hours or so, you will be wandering through roads with the same scenery, just with different roads to cross. Eventually, you'll have the option of choosing the way through the roads, or going via World Map. The world map has no enemy encounters whatsoever, so that would be the main change in terms of adventuring in Hearts. Grade doesn't appear in the game until much later either, for some strange reason. There are other similarities too. The extremely useful Sorcerer's Ring returns, and there are three types of elements that come from the ring itself. You can change them by scrolling through them on the touch screen. The Sorcerer's Ring has been a big help ever since Phantasia. Dungeons are also rather similar to previous installments. There are many puzzles to solve, along with enemies that bug you, and the big boss at the end. Spir Mazes count as some of these dungeons. When you enter the hearts of people with the power of the Soma, the Spir Mazes act like dungeons. It gives me that Alundra feeling for some reason. Another quick thing to add. There is no cooking system. No ingredients can be bought, no food can be made, and No Wonder Chef. I found this quite disappointing, but it ain't worth crying about it.
Tales of Hearts isn't very difficult. I played it on Normal, so it might be much harder on a higher level. Nevertheless, I still found it rather easy. While the difficulty level isn't high, the hours of gameplay is much more satisfactory. You'll be at it for a while. This is good, because Hearts is addictive!
The graphics in Tales of Hearts aren't too bad overall, but then again, aren't too impressive either. The battle graphics look really nice, so that's a plus. Battles are in full 2D, and they look pretty cool, especially for the DS. The graphics outside battles look a bit strange. While i'm usually a huge fan of 2D sprites in 3D environments, (as I have stated many times previously) it just looks strange in Tales of Hearts. I think they could've possibly improved this particular graphical section a teensy bit more, and I probably would've added another plus. Of course, then there are the cinematics. I can't really say much about the CG, but the Anime is pretty impressive.
Then, there's the soundtrack. The main theme song, "Eien no A shi ta", was written and sung by J-POP band, Deen. They also did the main theme for Tales of Destiny back in 1997. The rest of the soundtrack was composed by Motoi Sakuraba, who is no stranger to the Tales series, or tri-Ace games, for that matter. Alas, this is not the best work that Motoi-san has done. Nowhere near it. While the soundtrack does have many cheery songs, and possibly even some old-school charms, none of them wowed me. The soundtrack may not be my favourite in the series, I cannot compare it to the superior soundtracks of Symphonia, Abyss or Vesperia, due to hardware limitations on the DS. Tales of Hearts also has voice acting. I have no idea whether Tempest or Innocence had cutscene voices, but I still find this rather impressive, especially for a DS game. Mind you, they didn't stuff this game onto a 2GB cart for nothing. Fortunately, the voice acting helps a tiny bit when translating. There are still many Japanese words I do not know, but when going over the Katakana, (characters that are used for the English sounding words, like Tennisu as a simple example, which is Tennis) it makes my understand a bit quicker. There are still the odd cutscenes which lack voices, but most of the story cutscenes contain the voices. Now, I'm not very good at telling how good Japanese acting is, but most of the voices seem to be fine. No problems, maybe except for Beryl's voice which gets a bit tedious after a while. Aside such a minor annoyance, the voices are fine.
Tales of Hearts had many changes in the Tales formula. Some of these changes are a little bit of a disappointment, but others are rather interesting. I found this particular installment quite addictive, and up there as one of the most addicting in the series. I have not played Tempest or Innocence (I have yet to import those) so I am unable to compare them. I have no idea whether Namco will localize Hearts or not, (or if they'll localize the other DS Tales games) but until then, I can only say this: Tales of Hearts is a pretty good game in the series, and definitely worth the import if you are a fan of the series, like myself. It's a much more enjoyable experience if you know your Katakana, but then again, it's even better if you're fluent in the language. If you do import it, what you then need to do is ask yourself this question: Will you stay with the traditions of the series and stick with Anime? Or will you take the new path, similar to Square-Enix RPGs, and pick the CG? The choice is up to you.